Caution: There are spoilers in The Walking Dead Rock In The Road Review
It’s been quite a few weeks since the last episode of The Walking Dead aired on TV screens and I’ve been eagerly awaiting the next episode in the series. With this episode and the second half of the season, I’ve been hoping to see a little more of the Rick (Andrew Lincoln) we knew in season six who is strong and ready to fight anything that comes his way. I’m happy to say that I think that the Rock in The Road is the beginning of the return to the Rick we once knew.
This episode sees Rick and his group join up with Jesus (Tom Payne) and his group in a discussion about what to do about The Saviours and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). Interestingly Negan is completely absent from this episode, except for a small voice over on a walkie-talkie, that’s all we get from that character.
This episode is also much lighter with its tone compared to much of the first half of the season, but not unlike the first episode (read The Well) we saw with King Ezekiel (Khary Payton), who is back this time around after not being seen for a while. It seems that episodes that have King Ezekiel may be the ones we can expect things to be a little lighter in tone than the others.
Eventually Rick and his group travel over to the Kingdom to ask for help when it comes to standing up and fighting Negan’s people. There’s an interesting scene that forms during the episode when Rick goes to the King’s court to speak with Ezekiel who is there with his tiger. What I found a bit strange about the scene though was that Rick is such a powerful and strong character and seeing him at first speak to the King who is completely in character and acting as a King felt as a viewer, a little silly. But somehow it just works. Rick later on tells a story to the King about the rock in the road in order to sway his mind, but strangely the King decides not to help! I guess something bad might have to happen in the Kingdom for that to happen, maybe in later episodes.
This episode has one great action scene. There’s a part of the episode where Rick, Rosita (Christian Serratos) and the rest of the group come across some C4 which was left on the road and set to explode when a herd of walkers come by and set it off. Rosita steps up and starts dismantling things, which was great as it’s good to see some action from that character. But eventually the walker herd starts coming near the group. Rick and Michonne (Danai Gurira) do something kind of crazy, they attach a wire to two cars and drive down the road, which cuts up quite a few walkers into pieces. They’re probably wishing they though of that a year ago in season 6 when they had to manage that big herd of walkers!
Overall I had a great time with the Rock In The Road. It was a big episode for Rick and as a character that I think needed a lot more screen time for the first half of the season, I”m glad to see the show giving its main character a lot more. I also love the smile we get to see from Rick for the cliffhanger, just what was he thinking in that moment? What does his smiling symbolise? The Rock In The Road also has some great action sequences and I enjoyed that there was a stronger presence of walkers in this episode and Rick’s meeting with Ezekiel was a lot of fun to watch as well. Hopefully the rest of the season keeps going in this more positive and proactive way, I’m looking forward to seeing the group take down Negan.
